The enemy of my enemy is my friend?
by irisdouglasiana
Summary: Post season 2. Dottie is back in Los Angeles, but this time she's the one going to Peggy and Daniel for help. Kind of. Not really. Maybe.
1. Chapter 1

It was fun being a brunette for a while, but now Dottie's gone red. Once she's finished thoroughly casing Peggy's place, she takes a little time in the bathroom to primp and retouch her makeup. The shade of red she picked is a little too bright; makes her look washed out. She'll have to choose something darker next time. Once she's satisfied, she heads back to the living room and takes up her position on the couch and waits.

It's not Peggy who opens the door, to her disappointment. Chief Sousa switches on the light and stops dead in his tracks when he sees her.

"Why, Chief Sousa," Dottie says with a grin, pointing her gun at him casually. "So nice to see you again. How's Peggy? Oh, and keep your hands out of your jacket, if you please. White carpet is _so_ difficult to clean."

"Underwood," he says warily, "I take it you're not here for a social visit."

"Oh, please call me Dottie. We ought to be on a first name basis by now, don't you think, Daniel?" She pats the seat next to her. "Now come in and shut the door, and let's not do anything foolish. You and I can catch up until Peggy gets back."

* * *

If there's one thing Peggy really doesn't want to see when she gets home from doing some late night surveillance, it's Dottie Underwood on her couch with a gun pointed at her fiancé.

"Peggy!" Dottie exclaims. "I didn't know you two were engaged. My two favorite agents, getting married. I can't wait to get my invitation in the mail."

"Don't hold your breath. What are you doing here?" Peggy takes a step closer. Her voice is carefully neutral, but Dottie sees the tenseness in her muscles and how her breathing quickens as her eyes dart to Sousa. Peggy is a worthy rival, to be sure, but her weakness has always been other people.

"Hold on, Peg. First thing's first; drop your gun." Dottie watches closely as Peggy reaches into her jacket, slowly pulls out her weapon, and places it on the ground.

"I hate to say it, but I think you're getting sloppy," Peggy says.

Dottie doesn't even have time to say "What do you mean by that?" before Sousa whacks her in the head with his crutch. Carter springs forward and tackles her, the gun spinning out of reach. Dottie manages to get in a couple good punches before she hears the familiar click of a gun to her head.

"Well done, Daniel," Dottie says. A quick calculation tells her that his balance is tenuous and it wouldn't take much for her to shove Peggy into him and knock them both down, but that's not what she came here for. It would be satisfying, though.

She lets them tie her to a chair. "Just like old times," she says brightly. "I've missed good old American hospitality."

"Tell me, is it normal Russian guest behavior to threaten your host at gunpoint after breaking and entering?" Sousa asks.

Dottie turns to Peggy. "Your pet scientist was cute, but I like this one better. You're very well-suited for each other. Partners in self-righteousness. If one must spend time around men in the first place, that is—"

"That's enough," Sousa interrupts, picking up the phone. "We're calling this in. Miss Underwood has a cell waiting for her."

"She's probably been here for hours, Daniel; I'm sure the first thing she did was cut the phone lines," Peggy says, and Dottie's smile confirms it.

"If you think I cut my vacation short just so you could put me back in a box, you are very much mistaken."

Peggy leans in close. "Dottie, you've already killed dozens of civilians and attempted to destroy a city. Give me one good reason why we shouldn't lock you up and throw away the key."

Dottie leans forward too, so their faces are just inches apart. "Maybe you shouldn't have let me go in the first place, if I'm such a menace. I was convenient to you back then, but now that I'm no longer useful, back to my cell I go. You have this idea that if you lock up your problems they will go away. What you don't see can't hurt you."

"That's wonderful, but I think we're going to need a less abstract reason to not take you back to the station right now," Daniel says dryly, setting aside his crutch and taking a seat across the table from her. "So get to the point."

She sits back and shoots him an irritated look. "I paid a visit to our dear mutual friend Whitney Frost the other day. I walked right in. Your people, evidently, are not interested in her anymore—like I said, lock her up and you're finished."

"The prolonged contact with zero matter destroyed her mind," Peggy says. "Trying to interrogate her at this point is a useless exercise."

"Other parties are not convinced of that, and you're even more obtuse than I thought if you believe zero matter was her only project."

Now she has their attention. "The Russians are interested in Whitney Frost? Why are you telling us this? What do you want?" Daniel asks.

"Sharp as ever, Chief. We can get into the specifics of what I want shortly, but in the meantime, you're going to untie me. Right now."

"And why are we going to do that?" Peggy snorts.

Dottie smiles. "Because I happen to have several people following me…three at the last count. It may be more by now. My task was to obtain the information from Whitney Frost, deliver it to the appropriate parties, and then they were supposed to kill me. My cover was blown long ago and it seems that I'm no longer convenient to them either. I delayed them for a few hours but by now they should be nearly caught up to me. And by extension—you. Did you remember to lock the front door, Peggy? Not that it will make much of a difference."

Peggy stiffens, and Sousa grabs his crutch. "Cut her loose," Peggy directs him through gritted teeth, and draws her gun.

Something made of glass shatters in the next room over. "Well, well. That must be your living room window," Dottie remarks. "They're right on time."


	2. Chapter 2

The moment she reads the message, Dottie knows this is her final assignment. Like the other girls, she grew up with the understanding that she can be replaced, she is disposable, she is nothing. She is only worth something if she is worth something to the state. And now she has outlived her usefulness. Every agent knows her face and what she represents.

Dottie has spent her entire life preparing for death, and so it surprises her when she realizes what she really wants is to live.

* * *

Peggy's living room is covered in shattered glass. As the first intruder climbs through the broken window, Sousa hits him in the face with his crutch before the second one reaches for him—and misses, because Peggy is there with a swift kick to the back of the knee. The man drops for a moment but quickly rebounds, knocking Peggy's gun out of her hand.

It won't be an easy fight for Peggy and Sousa, but Dottie knows they can handle the two men. She isn't worried about that. Breaking a window, coming in through the front, making plenty of noise: this is a distraction.

Dottie hears a noise right behind her and barely has enough time to turn and grab her opponent's arm and drive her into the wall. For a brief moment, they pause and look at each other. The other woman has curly blond hair and a lean, angular face. They could be sisters.

"Goodbye," the woman says, and lunges at Dottie, knife in hand.

Dottie is fast but not nearly fast enough, and the knife slashes her stomach. There's a flash of pain but she doesn't waste her breath crying out. Her opponent stumbles and Dottie takes advantage of the moment to push her down and kick the knife out of her hand. The weapon goes skittering away and Dottie reaches for it, only to get punched in her bleeding stomach. Before she has time to recover and get her breath back, the other woman's hands are around her neck and she's choking.

Everything starts to go black. Then Dottie hears the sound of glass breaking and her opponent slumps forward on top of her, unconscious.

Peggy's standing over them, wielding a broken lamp and breathing heavily. "The Jarvises gave me this lamp," she says regretfully. She pulls the other woman off of Dottie, but keeps her gun aimed at Dottie's head.

Sousa limps over to them, looking decidedly put off. His jacket is torn, his hair is a mess, and he has blood running down along his face from a cut on his forehead. "The neighbors called the police already. All of our guests are taking a trip to the station. You too," he says, pointing at Dottie. "You're not just walking away after all of this."

Dottie gets to her feet slowly, holding her stomach. The wound is deeper than she thought, and now it's really starting to hurt. "Sorry about your living room, Peggy," she says. "And your dining room."

"I'll interpret that as your way of saying, 'Thank you, Peggy, for saving my life.'" Peggy frowns. "You're hurt."

"I'd like to borrow your sewing kit if you don't mind, Peg," Dottie says, carefully making her way down the hall towards the bedroom.

"We'll get you stitched up back in your cell," Sousa says, reaching for her arm. She shoves his hand away and he stumbles backward.

"Chief, in your report on the Isodyne case, did you mention how you facilitated the escape of a Soviet operative?" Dottie asks as she begins rummaging through Peggy's drawers. "No? Why did you leave out the best part?"

Peggy steps in before Sousa can reply, touching his shoulder gently. "Daniel, the police should be here by now. Why don't you go give them a hand with our three visitors? I think Dottie and I need to have a little talk."

Sousa sighs and nods, and then to Dottie's surprise, he ruffles Peggy's hair.

Dottie can't resist. "Gee, you two sure are cute together."

Sousa shoots her a glare before leaving, and she smirks back at him.

Once the two of them are alone, Peggy retrieves her sewing kit and they head to the bathroom together. Dottie strips off her bloody shirt and starts washing the wound while Peggy threads the needle.

"If I were you, I would be other side of the world right now sipping a cocktail," Peggy begins casually. "Instead, you're on the run from Soviet assassins, you're bleeding all over my bathroom and you've completely wrecked my living room, you made me break a lamp that was a gift from the Jarvises, you held Daniel at gunpoint—I'm not very pleased about that—oh, and you changed your hair color again. Sorry, but I don't think that shade of red suits you. How about you tell me why you're here?"

Dottie starts stitching up her stomach. "Peggy, you work for the American government. What would you do if your employer decided you were worth more to them dead than alive? Would you die for them?"

Peggy says, "My job is to protect people. Sometimes that may come before my personal safety."

"Oh Peg, you're so noble. Your government would be happy to pin a medal to your corpse, just like they did with poor Jack Thompson—I had nothing to do with that, by the way. But I don't want to be dead. I also don't want to be in a cell for the rest of my life. So I'm willing to make certain compromises with you. In exchange, I want my freedom and I want my record wiped. Permanently."

Peggy crosses her arms. "And then what, Dottie? You'll settle down? Live a civilian life?"

Finished with the stitches, Dottie rinses off the needle and hands it back to Peggy, and goes back to the bedroom.

"Hold on, where do you think you're going?" Peggy calls after her.

"I need a clean shirt, for one thing," Dottie says, opening Peggy's closet. A collared navy blue silk shirt with flowers catches her eye. "Oh, this is nice; where'd you get it?"

Peggy walks up behind her and gives an exasperated sigh. "Gimbels, I think. Now would you mind telling me why Whitney Frost is lying unconscious in my closet?"


	3. Chapter 3

Before she goes in, Dottie seriously contemplates killing Whitney Frost. It's not what she came there to do, but a part of her just really— _really_ —wants Whitney Frost dead. Dottie has always been very good at killing. It has been her greatest tool for survival. She is intimately familiar with the human body and knows an indefinite number of ways to damage it. She can maim and kill a target and walk away feeling nothing, and go straight on to the next one.

But Whitney Frost is different. Dottie's been on edge since their last encounter. She's been close to death plenty of times, but Frost almost brought her to oblivion—and it terrified her. Changed her in some way. She never had nightmares until after that night. Now, sometimes, she wakes up sweating and screaming as her own atoms begin to consume her from the inside out. Killing Whitney Frost might be gratifying, but she knows there is nothing that will make the nightmares stop.

* * *

She's borrowed her nurses' uniform and set of keys from an unfortunate mental hospital employee, and the plan is simple. For supposedly being the most secure hospital in Los Angeles, getting in is laughably simple. She goes in through the unlocked back door to the kitchen, takes the elevator up to the third floor, unlocks the door to Whitney Frost's cell and walks right in, wheelchair in tow.

Frost is sitting at the window and muttering to herself, and doesn't react to the sound of the door opening and closing. It takes Dottie a moment to recognize her. She looks small and frail and it's obvious she hasn't been eating. Clumps of blond hair litter the floor. The black mark on her face is gone, and in its place are scratches and open sores.

"How far you've fallen," Dottie murmurs, and the urge strikes her again: snap her neck, bash her head on the floor. How easy it would be.

Easy, yet unsatisfying. Frost wouldn't even be aware of what was going on. She picks up the chair Frost is sitting in and turns her around to face her. It's as though the other woman is looking right through her. "Remember me?"

No response. Dottie is both disappointed and relieved. She draws the syringe out of her bag, and that's when Frost reaches out and touches Dottie's face.

Dottie freezes. It takes every ounce of training and discipline she has to not flinch or slap her hand away.

Whitney Frost doesn't say anything, but she smiles and Dottie knows she remembers everything. She's dangerous still.

Dottie sticks the needle in Frost's arm. She goes limp almost immediately, and Dottie picks her up and sets her in the wheelchair. "We're taking a little trip, you and I," she whispers in her ear. _And later, when I'm finished with you, I'm going to make you suffer._

* * *

"I thought you said the Russians wanted _information_ from Whitney Frost. Not the actual person," Peggy groans. "What did you use to knock her out?"

Dottie shrugs. "So I misspoke. What better way to get information than from the source? Don't worry, she's not been harmed. Well, she might be slightly bruised."

Peggy puts her hands on her hips. "She's certainly not spending the rest of the night in my closet. She has to go back to the hospital. I'm sure they've noticed her missing by now."

"Get with the program, Peggy. I broke into that hospital without any fuss. Take her back, and one of my colleagues will be along shortly to pick her up—and they won't be as neat about as I was, or interested in any kind of negotiation."

"Fine. The SSR, then," Peggy sighs. "Daniel is not going to like this."

Frost twitches slightly, and her eyes flutter open. For a moment, her expression is blank and confused. Then she focuses on Peggy and her eyes go wide. She sits up and lunges for Peggy with surprising speed, her fingers curved like claws. Peggy and Dottie shove her back down while she babbles incoherently.

Dottie stabs Frost again with the syringe, and she passes out quickly. "She woke up sooner than I thought. I'll have to increase the dosage next time," Dottie tells Peggy almost apologetically. "Boy, that wasn't how she reacted to me."

Peggy appears oddly shaken by the encounter. She pushes Frost over onto her side and handcuffs her. "Please don't tell me you've got Howard Stark chained to my kitchen table, or something along those lines. I don't think I can handle any more surprises tonight."

"Howard Stark chained to your table?" Dottie raises an eyebrow. "That could be arranged."

"It's not a request," Peggy says, standing up as Sousa comes back into the room.

"Peg, the police just left and—" He freezes when he sees Whitney Frost lying on the floor in handcuffs, and turns away, muttering something about how he's getting too old for this.

"Dottie kindly dropped her off in my closet. She was not happy to see me when she woke up," Peggy explains. "Daniel, I think we need to take her to the SSR. It seems the Russians want her badly."

"Fine, but we're not a hospital, Peggy," Sousa sighs. "And what about _her_?" he asks, glancing at Dottie.

" _She_ is offering to cooperate and provide information about my employers' next plan, as long as certain conditions are met," Dottie answers. "This means we meet as equals. Not in handcuffs, not in a cell, not with you threatening to pull my teeth out. You get the information you want, and then I walk away."

"I hope you appreciate our dilemma here," Peggy says. "You're a fugitive, Dottie, and we don't have many reasons to trust your word. We can hardly set you loose in the SSR, let alone in polite society."

"Peggy's right," Sousa says. "You could be feeding us all sorts of misinformation."

Dottie sighs. "Tell me, Chief, who hires your lab techs?"

He looks confused. "Samberly. I needed somebody to clean up the mess Isodyne left behind, and that made the most sense."

"You might want to improve your screening process. Your newest lab technician—his current alias is Gerard Brown—has been gradually borrowing pieces of evidence from the Whitney Frost file over the past several weeks. It's too late to get some of it back, but if you're lucky you may be able to recover anything he hasn't been able to pass along yet."

Sousa shoots a look at Peggy. "I'm on it," she says quietly.

"Wonderful," Dottie says. The pain in her stomach is increasing, and it's clear Peggy and Sousa are not ready to take her deal. If they wanted to take her down right now, they could probably do it. Better to not give them the opportunity.

Frost stirs again. "Let's get her to the car," Peggy suggests. She and Dottie carry her out of the house and into the back seat. When Dottie closes the car door, she can see Peggy standing behind her, and takes note of the change in her stance. Even in her injured state, she's able to dodge the blow to the back of her head, and Peggy's fist connects with the car instead.

"Bad idea, Peggy," she says. As she twists to the side, she feels her stitches rip open and she winces, but she's ready for her opponent with the third and last syringe hidden up her sleeve. When Peggy comes back at her, Dottie stabs the syringe into her side and Peggy staggers back and drops to the ground. It's not the full dose, but it's enough.

"Freeze!" Sousa shouts from behind her, and Dottie doesn't need to see him to know he's got a gun pointed at her. If she was uninjured, there would be no question about it. Disarm him, take his weapon and car keys, and go. She wouldn't even need to kill him.

But she is injured, and she's still losing blood. As she turns around slowly, hands in the air, a wave of dizziness passes over her. _Time for a new plan_ , she thinks as Sousa handcuffs her and puts her in the car next to the still comatose Whitney Frost.

"Look at Miss Frost," Sousa says. When Dottie obediently turns to look, he slams the handle of his gun into the back of her head and everything goes dark.


	4. Chapter 4

Dottie wakes up with a massive headache and a sore stomach. She also wakes up handcuffed to a cot. They've even tied her feet down. "How original," she remarks to nobody in particular.

"You're awake," Sousa says flatly.

She turns to look at him, ignoring her throbbing head. Jack Thompson, she remembers, was afraid of her. She unnerved Vernon Masters. She doesn't sense any fear from Daniel Sousa—instead, he radiates anger. His expression is tightly controlled and his voice is even, but he's digging his nails into the handgrip of his crutch. Dottie has known other men like this; calm and contained on the surface but boiling underneath. Men—so transparent, so _easy_. She's never met a man who was a worthy opponent.

"You SSR boys sure like tying a girl down, don't you?" she asks, giving him her best ditzy smile.

"Consider it a necessary precaution."

"So she escaped?" Dottie hazards a guess. She's rewarded by the flicker of surprise on his face.

"Your…colleagues…are being interrogated as we speak," Sousa answers.

 _Liar._ "I see. And while my colleagues—as you call them—are being questioned, you've been sitting here waiting for me to wake up?"

He doesn't say anything, so Dottie continues. "Those two men were just there for backup. I'm sure you've already realized by now that they don't know anything useful. You want _her_."

Sousa leans forward. "Who is she? Do you know her?"

"Oh, I'm sure you'd like to know. And I'm happy to share this information with you, provided you agree the terms I gave you earlier. Before Peggy tried to punch me in the head. Or you can waste both my time and yours by threatening me with pliers and sticks, like your coworkers. Does that sound fun?"

Peggy opens the door and sticks her head in. "Daniel—may I have a word?"

Dottie grins. "Hi, Peggy."

Sousa looks ready to strangle her. Instead, he shakes his head and follows Peggy out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

The moment the door closes, Dottie sits up as far as she can, testing the tightness of her handcuffs. A wave of nausea passes over her and she nearly heaves. She eases back down and takes a closer look at her surroundings. This must be the SSR, certainly, but she's not in a cell. Instead, it looks more like a large costume closet. Wire hangers, scarves, zippers, wooden dowels. Plenty of useful tools.

Peggy and Sousa come back in the room. "Your friend Gerard Brown is dead," Peggy says. "He took poison instead of talking to me. It was not pleasant. But, as you said, I was able to recover some of the items he stole."

"I don't like it at all, but we are prepared to work with you," Sousa continues. "If you tell us everything you know about what the Soviets have planned for Whitney Frost, help us find the rest of the evidence Brown took, and track down your missing colleague—we will arrange your release, on the condition you leave the United States immediately and never come back."

"I see you're not making this deal in official SSR capacity," Dottie points out. "Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation inside a closet."

Peggy crosses her arms. "The official SSR deal is that we escort you immediately to the nearest cell and leave you there to be interrogated at our leisure."

"Don't worry; I'll work with you, Peggy. That sounds much more exciting." She knows their offer is a lie. If they have their way, they will let her do the work for them and then escort her back to a cell—unless she gives them the slip first. She's done it before.

"Excellent. One last thing," Peggy says, clasping a bracelet around Dottie's wrist.

"Another tracking device?"

"Very good. This is a prototype from Howard Stark, improved from the previous version. It contains a miniaturized bomb. Only god knows what Howard was thinking when he invented this. It won't blow up a building, but it's powerful enough to cause a lot of damage at close range. This means you'll most likely blow your arm off if you try to remove it. And I've got the remote." Peggy unlocks the handcuffs.

"Lovely," Dottie says, standing up carefully to avoid ripping her stitches again. She rifles through the racks of clothing and pockets a few useful items as she goes, until she finds what she's looking for. She pulls the lab coat off the hanger and tries it on. "I can't pull off this look nearly as well as you can, Peggy. You make an awfully cute doctor."

"What are you doing?" Sousa asks. "We don't have time for dress up."

"I'm not officially here, remember? Unless you want to explain to your fellow agents why you're walking around the SSR with a Soviet operative," Dottie says, hunting for a suitable wig. "Now let's go pay Whitney Frost another visit."

* * *

"We're not going to get anything out of Whitney Frost," Sousa says as he limps along behind Peggy and Dottie. "Since she woke up, she hasn't done anything except sit there and talk to herself."

"Have a little faith, Chief," Dottie says. She's busy memorizing the layout of the SSR building and noting all the best entry and exit points as they go.

"Have faith in who? You? Whitney Frost?"

"Here we are," Peggy says, stopping in front of the door to the holding cell. She relieves the agent standing guard outside with a nod.

"You're not coming in with us, Peggy," Dottie says.

Peggy gives her an incredulous look. "Of course I am."

"If she sees you again, she's going to react like she did the first time, and then we really won't get anywhere. Now give me the papers you recovered from Gerard Brown. She's going to tell us what they mean, since you're not inclined to believe anything I tell you." When Peggy hesitates, Dottie rolls her eyes. "I promise I won't lay a finger on Frost or your precious fiancé."

"I think she's right, Peg," Sousa sighs. "Give Samberly a call? We may need his services, unfortunately."

"Why are you siding with her?" Peggy asks, but she hands Sousa the files anyway. Her hand lingers over his for a moment.

"I'm not," he says. He leans in and kisses her.

Dottie clears her throat loudly and opens the door to the holding cell. Sousa and Peggy separate, looking sheepish. "Do you want some privacy? I can talk to Frost myself."

She goes in, Sousa trailing after her. Just as he said, Frost is off in the corner of the cell talking to herself and doesn't appear to register their presence.

"When Isodyne—and your government—first became interested in zero matter, it was primarily the spatial aspects they wanted to study. What is it made out of, how does it absorb other objects, and where do those objects go once absorbed?" Dottie explains to Sousa. "Oh, and they wanted to know how it could be weaponized. Typical. However, zero matter has such inconsistent properties and is so unpredictable that it's not yet been possible to create a weapon."

As Dottie speaks, she watches the other woman closely and is rewarded as Frost's muttering gradually dies out. She's listening. "The behavior of zero matter in space is fascinating, but your researchers have paid less attention to the temporal aspects. That's what our scientists are really interested in."

"The temporal aspects," Sousa repeats. "You don't mean—"

Whitney Frost suddenly stands up, grasping the bars of her cell and gazing at Dottie. "Objects that are taken up by zero matter are transformed not only in space, but in _time_ ," she says. Her voice quivers, but the smile on her face is utterly triumphant.


	5. Chapter 5

After Dottie escapes from the trunk of the car and kills the police officer, her only thought is to get out of this forsaken city as soon as possible. She's finished here; let Peggy deal with Whitney Frost. Dottie has nothing on her except the officer's gun, but that's enough. She breaks into an empty home several blocks away from the hospital and raids it for a change of clothes, jewelry, money, anything else she can find. No casual observer would notice, but her hands are trembling ever so slightly.

* * *

Whitney Frost is smiling at Dottie, and Dottie smiles back. "Zero matter has a tremendous amount of energy, enough to transport objects instantaneously through space," Frost says. "In theory, if harnessed correctly, one could move objects through time in the same way."

Sousa holds up a stack of papers, covered in equations and drawings. Frost's eyes go wide and she reaches through the bars for them. "Move objects into the future? The past? Both?"

"Both ways. Though changing the past would have obvious ramifications for the future. But the real problem is how to control when and where to send the object…" Whitney Frost trails off and focuses her attention back on Dottie. "I remember you. You were so afraid of me you were shaking like a leaf. You cried."

Though every inch of her screams in revulsion, Dottie reaches in between the bars and grabs Frost's wrist, twisting it until the other woman gasps in pain.

Sousa's got his gun pressed up against her head. "Let her go."

She pushes Frost away forcefully. _Soon, I'll have you soon_.

"We can continue this interview with you in handcuffs," Sousa reminds her. "Will that be necessary?"

He's been getting on her nerves more and more as the night drags on. Dottie smiles at him. "I'll behave."

"Thank you," Sousa sighs. He turns back to Frost. "How would we know if the future has been changed?"

She laughs. "Well, it hasn't been done to my knowledge, so it's hard to say. It's possible we wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary. My best conjecture is that one would first observe small anomalies—things that shouldn't be there or look the way they do—and then increasingly larger anomalies would appear."

The door opens and a portly man sticks his head in. Dottie doesn't recognize him. "Carter said it was urgent? Something to do with Whitney Frost?"

"Samberly, it's about time you got here," Sousa says.

"It's four in the morning, Chief. Normal people are asleep at this hour."

"Hello, Dr. Samberly," Dottie purrs.

"Hi," he says, looking terrifically uncomfortable. He glances at Sousa. "Chief—"

"Don't talk to him," Sousa orders Dottie. "Not one word out of you. Samberly, don't talk to the lady. Got it?"

"Sure, Chief," Dottie says, giving Samberly her brightest smile. He looks ready to run out the door.

"Listen up, Samberly," Sousa says. "We are interviewing Miss Frost here about the…temporal properties of zero matter. Your job is to keep her talking and get as much information out of her as possible. Any questions?"

"Uh, I think I got it, Chief." Samberly hesitates. "Carter told me about Gerard. I take full responsibility; I swear I had no idea—"

Sousa closes his eyes for a moment. "As chief, the responsibility ultimately rests with me. I believe you. And I'm not interested in pursuing any commie witch hunts within the SSR. I just want to get this case solved. And then I want to go to bed and stay there for a long time."

Samberly looks relived. "Great. Thanks, Chief. Though since I've got you here, maybe when we get a chance we could talk about the lab budget for next year?"

Sousa glares at him. "Does this seem like the time or place to be asking me about the budget?"

"No, but—"

"Put in a formal budget request. Give it to me next week, when I _might_ be feeling a little more generous." He shakes his head. "Actually, make that two weeks."

* * *

"Time travel." Peggy raises an eyebrow.

"In a manner of speaking," Dottie says. "Zero matter distorts the space around it and makes it behave in very unusual ways, but as you know, it's possible to contain and control it to an extent. Zero matter also distorts time, though we know less about how that works. But if it's possible to control that aspect of it, then it could be possible to change past events to alter future outcomes, for example. And no doubt create some interesting paradoxes."

"Do you believe this?" Peggy asks Sousa.

"I really didn't think we would get anything out of Whitney Frost," Sousa says. "I thought she was completely nuts. Then she started telling us all these things. So I still think she's completely nuts, but we've both seen what zero matter can do. I can't rule it out."

"I thought it was zero matter that made her lose her mind, but now I wonder if it's because people stopped listening to her," Peggy says thoughtfully. "Maybe she's talking to us because somebody is listening."

Sousa pauses, seemingly a little uncomfortable with that speculation. "At any rate, it's clear that the Russians do want something with Whitney Frost, and Underwood was right about the stolen evidence. We need to recover the rest of it and find our missing spy. The longer we wait, the worse our chances are. Let's go."

"First of all, she could be anywhere by now. Second, do you really want to leave Dottie here with Samberly and Whitney Frost?"

"Oh." Sousa stops in his tracks. "That does sound like a bad idea."

"Terrible. What if you stay here with Samberly and Whitney, and Dottie and I will get the evidence back?"

Sousa shakes his head. "You and her alone? She could be walking you right into a trap. We can't trust her."

"What is it with you and trust issues?" Dottie interjects. "If I wanted to deliver Whitney Frost to the Russians, I would have done it already and spared myself the pleasures of your company. Besides, Peggy has the button to blow me up, remember?"

"Enough," Peggy says, pacing back and forth. "Now, if I were a Soviet spy tasked with kidnapping Whitney Frost and stealing her papers, and then everything started going the wrong way, I would want to lay low for a few days to reformulate a new plan and wait for backup. Thanks to Gerard Brown, she already has detailed knowledge of the layout of the SSR, and likely knows that we have Whitney Frost here. I propose we don't wait for the backup to arrive."

"You want to set a trap," Sousa says.

"I have a very bad idea. They want Whitney Frost, yes? So we'll stage it as though we're transferring her back to the hospital and let Dottie's friend draw herself out of the shadows."

Sousa frowns. "Sounds risky. I don't want to give them the chance to actually nab Whitney Frost."

Peggy smiles. "Oh, we won't."

It happens so quickly Dottie isn't even sure it's real. Out of the corner of her eye, for a brief moment, she glimpses a white rat running along the floor. Then it vanishes. A shudder runs up her spine.

Peggy is talking to her. "Dottie? Are we in agreement?"

Dottie blinks. "Sure, Peggy. Let's go have some fun."


	6. Chapter 6

Dottie has a close call the morning after she gives Peggy the slip. She's at Union Station buying a one-way ticket to San Diego—from there, she'll waltz over the border into Mexico—and for a split second, she notices the ticket seller hesitate as he hands her the boarding pass. Dottie thanks him and starts heading towards her train. As she glances over her shoulder, she sees him pick up his phone, still watching her.

Once she rounds the corner, instead of getting on the train she turns the other direction to get back to the street. Keeping a normal pace, she ditches her valise and pink hat (a pity; but it's too noticeable) and snags a woman's brown coat off an unattended bench. Clearly, her description has already been circulated. Time for a change in plans.

Dottie hotwires a car and drives east into Arizona, eager to get some distance between her and Los Angeles. Eventually she swings south and crosses the Mexican border. At the beginning she's hypervigilant, and she spends the next several weeks hopping from town to town, never staying in any place for more than a couple days. But as the weeks turn into months and nothing happens, she starts to breathe a little easier.

Almost a year after her escape, Dottie is in a restaurant right off the beach in Loreto. She's just finished her meal when the serving boy comes over. "Senorita," he says, handing her a note. When she finishes reading it, she scans the perimeter carefully, though she knows she won't see them.

They've found her. She always knew they would.

* * *

"This is never going to work; she doesn't look anything like her," Sousa says, looking over Peggy's shoulder as she touches up the lipstick "sores" on Dottie's face. "It's too pinkish. It doesn't look right."

Peggy glares at him dangerously and thrusts the lipstick into his hand. "Oh, I see. Would you like to take over?"

He gives the lipstick back and sighs. "No, sorry. You're doing a great job, Peg."

"Great job, Peg," Dottie says, mimicking his inflection.

"You're really testing my patience tonight, Underwood."

She grins. "Would you feel better if you smacked me around a little? Come on, Daniel. Don't be shy."

"That won't be necessary," Peggy says, stepping back to view her work. "Now, we're all clear on what happens next?"

"Perfectly," Dottie answers.

Sousa nods. "Be careful." He turns to Dottie. "I swear to god, if anything happens to Peggy—"

"You'll kill me?" she finishes. "How sweet."

He throws up his free hand. "I'm going to check on Samberly and Whitney Frost. Underwood is all yours," he tells Peggy as he limps away. "You've got the radio and the detonator. Don't hesitate to use it if you need to."

Once he's gone, Peggy adjusts the blond wig on Dottie's head. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Very much," Dottie says. "But Peg, you never told me how you got engaged. I'm dying to know the details. How did he ask?"

Peggy flushes. "I'm not having this conversation with you."

"Come on, aren't we old friends? You can tell me. Did he get down on one knee? Did he make a little speech? Did you cry?"

"Actually, I asked him," Peggy snaps. "And no, I didn't get down on one knee or make a speech."

"Oh. So you cried?"

Peggy puts her hands on her hips. "I certainly did not."

Dottie knows a lie when she sees one, but she lets it go. "I think that's wonderful, Peggy," she says.

Peggy looks puzzled. "Really?"

"Of course I do," Dottie says. She's never had much of an understanding of love, and she finds the concept of marriage totally repulsive. Still, on some level, she's pleased for Peggy.

Peggy's actually blushing. She looks down and clears her throat, and the moment passes. "Let's get to work."

* * *

As the sun rises, three unmarked cars with tinted windows leave the SSR, heading west. Five minutes later, a fourth car pulls out from the SSR and follows the others, keeping its distance. At a particular intersection, the first three cars turn south. As the fourth car reaches the intersection, a green car pulls up behind it.

"There she is," Peggy murmurs, turning north and heading out of the city up a winding canyon road. The green car follows them.

Dottie turns to look from the back seat. "This is a terrible plan," she says, tugging at her blond wig. Sousa was right; even with a wig, the right clothes, and liberal amounts of makeup, she hardly resembles Whitney Frost. Though for their purposes, she just needs to look enough like Frost to lure the other spy into an ambush.

"Hm, that's strange. I don't recall asking for your opinion," Peggy says, watching the rearview mirror. She radios in to Sousa. "She's behind us. Green Ford. We're heading now for the rendezvous point."

"Good work," Sousa says. "Our guys are stationed up at—" His voice is suddenly drowned out by radio static.

"Daniel? Do you read me?" Peggy asks. "Daniel?"

Several seconds later, Sousa's voice comes in very faintly, his tone entirely changed. "If you've killed her, I swear—"

Dottie hears her own voice over the radio, much louder than Sousa's. "What would be the point of me bringing you a corpse? Of course she's alive."

Peggy looks over her shoulder at Dottie, realization dawning on both of them simultaneously: _they're listening to a conversation that hasn't happened yet_. The green car suddenly rams them hard from behind, jolting them both forward. Peggy slams into the windshield headfirst and bounces back, dazed.

"Sorry, Peggy," Dottie says almost regretfully. She loops the piece of cord she stole from the costume closet around Peggy's neck and pulls tight. The car swerves wildly as Peggy kicks and tries to grab her, but Dottie hangs on even though her injured stomach screams in protest. She lets go as soon as Peggy goes limp and the car skids to a stop. She performs a cursory search and pockets the radio, but she can't find anything that resembles a detonator.

The other spy is waiting for her outside the car, gun pointed at Dottie. "Where's Frost?"

Dottie raises her hands and smiles. "You have a couple options right now," she says. "One—you can kill me in accordance with your original directive, and figure out how to get to Whitney Frost on your own. It won't be so easy now that the SSR knows you're looking for her and your man on the inside is dead."

"I know who I can thank for that."

Dottie ignores her. "Option two—you and I make a deal. I go back to the SSR and trade Agent Carter here for Whitney Frost, while you go in and get the remaining documents you need. You take Frost and the documents, and I suppose at that point you can try to kill me, but why bother? You'll have everything you came for. And I disappear."

The woman takes a step closer to Dottie. She doesn't lower her gun. "Do you really expect me to believe that the SSR would hand over Whitney Frost in exchange for one agent?"

Dottie's smile turns positively fiendish. "Oh, they won't. But _he_ certainly will."


	7. Chapter 7

There are about a dozen girls in the courtyard on a beautiful spring day. One girl, smaller than the others, finds a black caterpillar with red spots inching its way across the pavement. She picks it up and watches it crawl across her hand, fascinated.

The other girls take notice and crowd around her. One of them tries to pluck the caterpillar from the first girl's hand, but she pulls away. The taller girl shoves her to the ground and the others pin her arms down. She attempts to pry her hand open, but the first girl is holding on so tightly that when she finally lets go, the caterpillar is squished into a pulp. The second girl scrapes up what's left of the caterpillar and uses her other hand to pinch the first girl's nose shut. When the first girl opens her mouth to breathe, the other shoves the caterpillar down her throat.

* * *

The woman steps closer, pushing the muzzle of her gun into Dottie's wounded stomach. She and Dottie are exactly the same height. With her left hand, she pulls the wig off of Dottie's head and tosses it to the side. She toys with a strand of Dottie's real hair, twisting it around her fingers. "Red isn't your color, sweetheart."

"So I've been told."

"I want you to understand that you're a dead woman already. You seem to be the only one who hasn't grasped that yet." She shoves the gun even harder into Dottie's wound. "You bought yourself an additional twelve hours with this charade. I hope you enjoyed it."

Dottie smiles. "Oh, I'll take whatever I can get."

"Indeed you will." She pats Dottie down thoroughly and relieves her of Peggy's gun, the radio, and the other odds and ends Dottie took from the closet. "Congratulations. Get me what I want, and you can run. Buy yourself another day or two, until your body shows up floating in the river. Or run back to your friends at the SSR and buy yourself a few more weeks, until they find you hanged in your cell. It doesn't make any difference to me."

Leviathan has multiple training centers; multiple generations of girls raised to kill. But even though Dottie doesn't recognize her, she feels certain that this woman was in her cohort. "You won't be far behind me if you succeed. You'd be better off taking your chances and running, too."

The woman backhands her casually. "Get on the radio with your friend at the SSR. He will bring Frost and the documents to the location of my choosing; you must take me for some kind of fool if you think I would walk right into whatever ambush they have planned for me. After that—" She glances over at Peggy and shrugs.

Dottie nods. Her meaning is perfectly clear.

They tie Peggy up and load her into the green Ford, abandoning the SSR car. Dottie switches the radio on. "Daniel, there's been a change in plans."

"Underwood? What's going on? What did you do with Peggy?" Even over the radio, the anger in his voice is unmistakable. But what Dottie's really listening for is the tinge of fear. She's gambling an awful lot on Sousa; when she hears the fear in his voice she knows she judged him correctly.

"Listen carefully. Tell your men at the end of the canyon to stand down. Then, you personally—and you alone; that should go without saying—will bring Whitney Frost and her entire file to a certain location. After that, you'll hand Frost over to us and we will give you Peggy."

"If you've killed her, I swear—"

"What would be the point of me bringing you a corpse? Of course she's alive." The words slip out of her before she even realizes what she said.

There's a long pause on the other end. "Will you be able to live with yourself if she dies?" Dottie asks. "Choose wisely, Daniel."

The silence continues. At last, Sousa answers. "Fine."

"Excellent. Now, I shouldn't need to give you the coordinates of where we will be meeting, since you've got a tracking device on me." Another gamble.

Sousa says nothing. A smile spreads across Dottie's face. "Ah, so it was a bluff. You'll need the coordinates after all. We'll be seeing you in one hour, Daniel. Don't be late."

* * *

The other spy drives them to a waste management facility located on the far edge of town. The building clearly hasn't been in use for some time, and when they carry Peggy in, Dottie finds herself stepping over shattered glass and pieces of lab equipment. It looks like a bomb was set off inside. She feels the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "What a charming place," she remarks.

The woman raises a hand and silences her with a look. Then Dottie hears the voices and the hum of machinery, coming from the next room over.

"—the guy's been put through the wringer."

"Fine. Fine, kill the machine." Dottie recognizes Whitney Frost's voice immediately. She freezes in place. "I am at my wit's end, doctor. Scalpels, needles, _nothing_ pulls this out of you, and I know you could give it to me if you choose."

The reply is inaudible. They set Peggy down on the floor and the other spy pulls out her gun, advancing slowly. Dottie trails behind her.

There's nobody there. Just more broken equipment, glass shards, and ominously, a table with leather straps. Dottie sees a flicker of uncertainty cross the other woman's face. "I think you don't really know what you're getting yourself into. _Sweetheart_."

Behind them, Peggy groans. "Gag her," the other woman orders Dottie absently, still searching the room.

Dottie helps Peggy sit up. She's still only partly conscious. "Daniel will be by soon to pick you up," Dottie says, winding a piece of cloth around Peggy's mouth. She touches Peggy's neck, gently running her finger along the red mark left by the cord. Peggy doesn't flinch, but her muscles tighten under Dottie's touch. "I'm sorry it has to be this way."

She stands when she hears the car pull up outside and drags Peggy out by her hair, the other spy following them silently. Dottie senses she's still a little spooked. As she should be.

Sousa is waiting for them, his mouth pressed tight with fury. He holds a gun awkwardly in his left hand, pointed at Dottie, with his right hand around Whitney Frost's elbow. She appears to have reverted to her earlier state, muttering endlessly to somebody only she can see. Her eyes pass over Peggy and Dottie without recognition. _I should have killed her the moment I saw her._

"I've fulfilled my end of the bargain," Sousa says flatly. "Now let Peggy go." When he meets Dottie's eyes, his expression is so cold that she doesn't doubt that he would kill her, given the chance. Well, let him try.

She jerks Peggy into a headlock. The sudden movement causes the stitches in her stomach to start to tear again, but she ignores it and squeezes harder as Peggy struggles. "Drop the gun, Daniel."

He does, and the other operative advances with her gun raised. With surprising gentleness, she takes Frost by her other arm and guides her away. Frost doesn't appear to care; when the other woman lets go of her arm she just stands there, mumbling. "The documents, Chief Sousa."

Sousa tilts his head towards the car, not taking his eyes off of Peggy. "In the trunk. You'll have to take it; I can't carry it."

The woman takes out a large blue box and carries it over to where Frost is standing. She takes off the lid and starts rifling through the papers, and then gives Dottie a nod. Dottie releases Peggy from the headlock and shoves her towards Sousa. He scrambles to catch her.

The other spy frowns as she lifts a small round object out of the box and turns it over in her hands. Out of the corner of her eye, Dottie sees Sousa brace himself and turn away, shielding Peggy. Dottie barely has time to react and cover her face before the object explodes with a blinding flash of light and a tremendous bang and she's knocked off her feet.


	8. Chapter 8

It's Peggy's voice that Dottie hears first as she regains consciousness. "—in the bloody hell you were thinking, Chief Sousa, coming out here without backup, I swear—"

"You can scold me later, Peggy," Sousa says.

Dottie blinks as the world comes back into focus. The explosion knocked her onto her back and when she sits up, her vision fills with black spots and she nearly passes out. She looks down at the ground and breathes in slowly. The black spots disappear, except for one on the ground close to her left hand. She leans in for a closer look and then snatches her hand away, forcing back a sudden wave of panic.

As she looks around, she sees more zero matter splattered on the floor, the walls, everywhere. Dottie almost stops breathing, focusing on the speck on the floor closest to her, rippling, _moving_ —

On the other side of the room, the other operative and Whitney Frost are still passed out, having taken the full force of the explosion. Over by the car, Sousa and Peggy are on the ground too. He's already removed the gag and he's working quickly to untie her hands. Dottie lurches to her feet and storms over to them, fighting back nausea and the sinking feeling in her stomach. She picks Sousa's crutch off the floor and gives him a couple very satisfying whacks with it.

"You absolute fool," she seethes, and manages to get in another blow before Peggy lunges for her. She dodges Peggy, but Sousa gets a hold on her ankle and yanks hard. Peggy is on top of her the moment she hits the ground, an elbow digging into her back.

"Look around you," Dottie hisses. "Look at what you've done." She feels Peggy stiffen as she sees the puddles of zero matter all over the floor.

"Peggy," Sousa says in an alarmed tone, and they both look up. On the other side of the room, the other operative is still slumped over unconscious over the file, having taken the full force of the explosion. But Whitney Frost is standing up straight with an ecstatic expression on her face. Dottie nearly stops breathing as the specks of zero matter slide across the floor towards Frost. She stretches out her hands as she absorbs the particles. Then she looks up at them and smiles, her eyes gone completely black.

Peggy lessens her grip on Dottie enough for Dottie to shove her off and snatch up the gun Sousa dropped. Her aim is perfect and the bullet passes through the middle of Frost's forehead. Sousa and Peggy both cry out as Frost drops to the ground.

Dottie actually does stop breathing when Frost stands up, watching in disbelief even as Peggy yanks her to her feet and shoves her into the backseat of the SSR car. As Sousa tears out of there, Dottie sees Frost kneel down beside the other operative and stroke her hair.

Dottie looks away.

* * *

Once again, Dottie finds herself in handcuffs, a gun to her head. Peggy's not looking too happy with her, and Dottie suspects she'll be seeing the inside of her old cell shortly. Fair enough.

"You've got some explaining to do," Peggy snaps.

"I laid it out for you from the beginning, Peggy. I offered you a deal. I gave up the identity of a Soviet spy and I told you what my government wanted from Whitney Frost."

"Right. And then you tried to strangle me. I don't think that was part of the agreement."

Dottie shrugs. "Let's not play around. You never had any intention of fulfilling your end of the deal, so I decided to take a chance."

"That worked out well for everyone," Sousa remarks sarcastically from the driver's seat, and Dottie regrets not whacking him harder when she had the opportunity. Or cracking his skull, for that matter.

"Was I the one who just exploded a zero matter bomb back there? Oh wait. That was you. Well done, Chief."

He winces. "That…was not what I intended to happen."

"No more deals, no more negotiation," Peggy cuts in. "We will handle Whitney Frost from this point forward, and you will go back to your cell and stay there. Permanently."

"Until you realize you need me again?" Dottie shoots back. "Let's see how long it takes. It's all for the greater good, yes? Just like the last time."

"Do you need to be gagged as well?" Peggy asks sharply. She turns to Sousa. "Frost's next target will most likely be the SSR. She'll be coming after the gamma cannon. We'll extract the zero matter from her like we did the last time, and then we have to figure how to stop the Russians and change the future back to…whatever it was supposed to be."

 _There's no reset button_ , Dottie thinks. "And what will you do with Frost? Supposing all goes according to plan."

Peggy raises an eyebrow. "Put her back in a mental facility where she belongs. With better security this time."

No, that won't do at all. When the time comes, Dottie will have to take matters into her own hands. "Same old, same old. You've really learned nothing."

Peggy is silent for a moment. "The way you were back there, after the bomb exploded—I've never seen you like that."

"Like what?"

"Scared."

Dottie watches her steadily. "Oh, Peggy. You're not nearly scared enough." There was something Dottie felt she was missing before, but the pieces are beginning to fall into place. "Out of curiosity, did you ever figure out who killed Jack Thompson?"

"What?" Peggy asks sharply. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Poor Peggy. Almost a year gone by and you still can't see why the investigation never went anywhere." She notices Sousa stiffen in the front seat. "Ah. But _you_ , Chief? Next in line after Thompson; you must have suspected."

Peggy reaches out and grabs Dottie by the collar. "Talk."

"There are so many ways to kill people and make it look like an accident. But when you go up to the chief of the SSR and shoot him in the chest at close range? That's making a statement. That's a warning. Tell me, what evidence did you recover?"

"Next to nothing," Sousa says, shaking his head. "We interviewed everyone in and around the hotel that day, and nobody even heard the gun go off. We went over every square inch of that room for fingerprints. Jack's luggage was lying on the bed where he left it. Leviathan, we thought at first. Maybe you. But we kept hitting dead ends."

"Leviathan had nothing to do with it, and it wasn't me. I must say, I'm a little sorry I missed my chance."

Peggy doesn't say anything. Her lips are pressed tightly together, eyes glinting.

"Now, let's picture an alternative timeline, shall we?" Dottie continues. "Think back to one year ago: maybe Jack Thompson is on the verge of discovering something important. Maybe he realizes it on the plane ride back to New York. Maybe when he arrives, he calls Chief Sousa here and sets a certain chain of events in motion that make certain powerful people unhappy."

"This is pure speculation," Sousa objects.

"Of course it is, Chief. I'm talking about an alternative timeline. It's speculative by nature."

"You said that Leviathan was not involved," he says slowly. "And you think they're not responsible for these anomalies, either?"

"The Russians found out about zero matter only recently; your people have been working on it for much longer. They're desperate to catch up—why else would they want Whitney Frost? But obviously Frost is here and not in Russia, and so it seems unlikely that they would have already developed the technology that can alter the past or the future."

Sousa's catching on. She can almost see the wheels turning in his head. "The anomalies are happening in the present. Somebody else is behind this."

Peggy's kept silent until now. Her voice is deadly. "Who killed Jack Thompson?"

"You already know, Peggy. Now, let me ask you again: is this a government you would die for? Is this a government you would kill for?"

She slaps Dottie hard. "Peggy!" Sousa exclaims, looking over his shoulder.

Peggy leans in close. "You wouldn't understand this, but our job is to protect people. Not the government, not crooked politicians and corporations, not the SSR. _People_."

"That's a nice little story, isn't it? No, it's not so simple. You're a part of this entire rotten system too, and that system will always protect the powerful. They'll kill you the minute you ask too many questions and become too inconvenient. It's a miracle the two of you are even alive."

"Who are you working for, Underwood?" Sousa asks. "Who _are_ you?"

Dottie pauses, studying Peggy for a moment. Her brown eyes are bright with anger, her face drawn with tension. She looks exhausted. And now, Dottie thinks, she might be ready to listen. "I can be anybody I want," she answers Sousa, but she's not really talking to him. "What about you, my dear? What about you?"


	9. Chapter 9

They put Dottie back in a cell, anyway. This one is smaller than the last, but otherwise there's not much to distinguish it from any of the other cells she's spent time in before. She paces around and measures the number of steps from one side to the other, inspects the cot and the toilet for anything that might be useful, and examines the steel door. Nothing to work with. She opens the blouse she got from Peggy to look at the stab wound. It hurts, but somehow the makeshift stitches have still held and there are no early signs of infection. Part of her wants to laugh. Well, at least when Whitney Frost comes for her, her insides won't be all over the floor…

Dottie supposes that other people would use this time to reflect, but she's never seen the point. She is, however, exhausted. She hasn't slept in over twenty four hours and it's starting to catch up with her—no wonder she felt her control slipping back at the warehouse. No food, either, but there's nothing to be done about that. Dottie's gone hungry before.

She lies down and is on the verge of drifting off when the door swings open. She doesn't bother getting up or looking to see who it is, but she can tell from the footsteps that it's a heavier man. Not Peggy, not Sousa. Not Whitney Frost.

"Underwood," the man says. "Dr. Wexford is here to conduct your psych evaluation."

Dottie smiles. "Show her in."

She sits up. The door is closed and nobody is there. Suddenly Dottie feels nauseous. She would vomit if her stomach weren't empty. When she gets out of here—if she gets out of here—she will kill Whitney Frost if it's the last thing she does, for what the woman has done to her. After that, Dottie has no plans.

She gets up and paces again. The other spy was right—Dottie can run, but only for so long. Eventually, she'll make a mistake or get unlucky. But if the choice is between running or sitting and waiting for them to come to her, then she will run as far as she can. She is resourceful; she will survive. The first step is getting out of this place.

It turns out she doesn't have long to wait. She hears footsteps in the hall, so quiet she almost misses them. It's the quietness that puts her on full alert. Dottie is injured and has nothing to use as a weapon, so she knows surprise is the only way she will win this one. The first few seconds are crucial. She plants herself along the wall next to the door and braces herself as it opens.

The moment the other spy steps through the door with her gun raised, Dottie grabs her by her outstretched arm and slams her into the wall. The gun goes off and the bullet ricochets off the floor. Dottie is able to knock the gun out of the other woman's hand, but not before she gets an elbow to the stomach. It's a hard enough blow that she almost stumbles, which would be a fatal mistake. Instead, Dottie grabs her by the hair and shoves her headfirst into the hard metal corner of the cot and finishes with a swift kick to the head. The woman drops to the floor, shuddering.

Dottie retrieves the gun and checks the silencer. The weight is comforting in her hand. She regards the other woman lying almost unconscious on the ground. _Comrade_ , she would have called her once. _Sister._

"Goodbye," Dottie says, and shoots. She closes the door behind her and doesn't look back.

* * *

Dottie realizes something is not quite right about the SSR as she makes her way cautiously down the hall. Something is making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. It's too quiet, too empty.

It's also dawning on her that even if she does find Whitney Frost, she doesn't know how to kill her. She's dealing with something far bigger and more powerful than herself. But Peggy and Sousa had found a way before to expel the zero matter, so it must be possible. What was it they had talked about on the drive back to the SSR? A gamma cannon?

The floor is shaking, just barely. Dottie freezes and looks down to see a white rat go running past her feet. And then another one, and then another one. Suddenly there are dozens and dozens of white rats spilling out the door at the very end of the hallway, all skittering in the other direction, squeaking in fear.

Dottie forces down the bile rising in her throat. She can still turn around. Run the other way. She remembers the way Frost reached out and grabbed her, how it felt to be devoured from the inside out, unable to move, unable to scream. After Frost left, she sobbed until she couldn't breathe. And then when the chance came, she ran scared, like a rabbit. _Like a rat_.

The rats vanish as swiftly as they appeared. Whitney Frost's voice drifts down the hall. "Come out, little spy. I know you're there."


	10. Chapter 10

Dottie takes a step forward, and a second, and a third. The walk down the hallway to the room at the end feels like the longest twenty seconds of her life. She struggles to keep her expression neutral and her pace steady as she enters the laboratory.

She sees Whitney Frost first, her hand casually gripping Sousa's arm. But he isn't even looking at Frost; he's looking across the room at Peggy leaning up against the wall. Her face is white as a sheet, lips pressed tightly together in pain. Her right arm is limp and her bloody left hand is pressed up against a wound on her side—the other spy's handiwork, Dottie is certain.

In the middle of the room, the scientist she met earlier—what was his name? Sanders? Samberly?—is frantically configuring wires on a device that can only be the gamma cannon. His hands are shaking. "This is bad, this is bad, this is bad," he keeps muttering to himself.

"Samberly, stop," Sousa pleads.

Frost gives him a small shake. "I don't need to tell you what will happen if you stop, Dr. Samberly." She turns to Dottie. "Miss Underwood, how good of you to join us. You can put the gun down; you know it won't make any difference."

Dottie doesn't lower the gun. She keeps it trained on Frost as she works her way around the room to stand by Peggy. Even in this situation, she can't resist a dig. "Rough morning?"

Peggy's glare is worth it. "I'll deal with you later," she says through gritted teeth. Then she addresses Frost. "If you want to punish me, then punish me. Leave them out of it."

"Oh, Agent Carter, I am punishing you. I just didn't realize it would be this easy." She turns her attention back towards Samberly, tapping her foot impatiently. "Why aren't you finished yet?"

"Lady, with all due respect, I built this thing and what you're asking for isn't gonna work," Samberly says. Sweat is pouring down his face. "It doesn't have the capability to handle that much power; the core is gonna overheat—"

"It _will_ work," Frost insists. "It worked before."

Sousa looks at her sharply. "What does that mean?"

"It means that those fools failed to realize there would be consequences down the line once they changed the past," she snaps. "You didn't seriously think the government would stop researching zero matter once they witnessed its true potential, did you?"

She breaks off suddenly. When the words rush out of her again, she seems to be in another world entirely, not paying attention to any of them. "And all this time, and the time before that, and they never once thought to come to _me_ when I could have given them exactly what they wanted; this was _my_ discovery and _my_ work and they stole my notes and called me crazy and locked me away—"

"You killed people," Peggy says, a hard edge to her voice.

"And they deserved it!" Frost's grip on Sousa tightens and Dottie sees the flicker of fear cross Peggy's face. Then Frost smiles and shakes her head slightly. "Sometimes scientific progress requires sacrifices to be made, Agent Carter. Tell me, did you ever wonder what happens to objects that are absorbed by zero matter? The question troubled me for a long time, because matter cannot simply cease to exist—it must go somewhere else, perhaps in a distorted form, but it doesn't just disappear.

"Simultaneously, a second question occurred to me: what happens when zero matter is used to move objects not in space, but in time? Then I realized that these two questions were not so different after all. Objects absorbed by zero matter continue to exist, but simply in a different timeline; one that is invisible to us. Conversely, changing the course of time results in the distortion of space—hence the anomalies."

Samberly has stopped fiddling with the wires and is instead staring in awe at Frost. "We're living in a distorted timeline."

"Perhaps 'alternative' is a more accurate description," she agrees. "But the evidence is all around us. We can deduce that something—or more likely, someone—was sent into the past in a different timeline, which I hypothesize has resulted in a rather interesting cyclical effect. The anomalies grow increasingly larger as we approach the point of departure from the original timeline. Which we should arrive at very soon."

"What happens once we reach the point of departure?" Dottie asks.

Frost shrugs. "A series of controlled experiments will be necessary to test that. Fortunately, the alterations Dr. Samberly has been making to the gamma cannon have prepared us for this step—though if they had simply contacted me from the beginning, I would have been able to do it in a matter of weeks. How long have you been working on this project, Doctor? Six months? A year?"

"Samberly?" Sousa asks.

The other man hangs his head, refusing to make eye contact with any of them. "I'm sorry, Chief," he says. "I'm so sorry. Please accept my resignation."

"Tell us," Peggy urges.

"It was an order from Washington, Chief, the very top of the SSR," Samberly says hoarsely. "Almost a year ago, they came to me, to my _apartment_ , and said they had a special project for me. They wanted to know how the gamma cannon could be used to allow a person to travel through time. I said no way, it wasn't possible. And they said yes, it was. They were certain of it."

"They were certain of it," Sousa echoes hollowly.

"And they said, this is an order and you're going to do it. I said no. They told me I'd be fired; they'd blacklist me and I'd never be able to find a job again. I still said no. And then…" he takes a long, shuddering breath, "…and then they showed me pictures. My parents, sitting in the living room reading the paper. My little sister, walking to school. I'm so sorry."

Sousa's eyes are bright with anger. "Don't be," he says. "I resign my position as chief of the West Coast Bureau, effective immediately."

"Daniel," Peggy breathes, "Are you sure?"

He shakes his head. "I can't work for people like this, Peggy. I won't be a part of that."

She swallows. "I resign too."

"Enough of this. You're wasting my time," Whitney Frost cuts in. "Now, doctor, are you finished?"

Samberly is making the final adjustment to the control. He wipes the sweat out of his eyes. "It's ready."

"No!" Peggy and Sousa exclaim in unison.

Frost smiles. "Go ahead, Dr. Samberly."

But Samberly shakes his head. "No."

Frost's voice is deceptively soft. "No?"

"You have to let Chief Sousa go first."

Both Sousa and Peggy give him an astonished look. Samberly's voice is trembling, but he plants his feet firmly and doesn't look away from Frost.

Frost doesn't relax her hold. "You realize your talents are wasted here, don't you, Dr. Samberly? Don't you wish you could work in a place where your intelligence would be respected; where your boss wouldn't undervalue you? What has this man ever done for you?"

A muscle jumps in his jaw. "Let. Chief Sousa. Go."

She rolls her eyes and shoves Sousa away from her contemptuously. It looks like a small push, but he goes sprawling. He scrambles over to join Peggy on the other side of the room. "Peg," he gasps, lowering her carefully into a sitting position. "You okay?"

"Fine." Her voice is higher than normal and she sounds like she's about to pass out. " _Stop her_."

"Turn it on, doctor," Frost says, stepping towards the scientist. Dottie begins edging that direction too.

Samberly is frozen in place as Frost approaches. She snatches the control out of his hands and he drops to the ground in a dead faint. As she presses the button, Dottie fires at the control and sends it flying out of Frost's hands.

She's too late. The machine is already whirring to life. Frost lunges forward with surprising speed and seizes Dottie by the neck. Her eyes are filled with rage.

Dottie's been burned, she's nearly drowned, she's been shot and stabbed and beaten within an each of her life. But none of that compares to being _consumed_.

 _No no no no nononononono…_

Dottie doesn't hear the second shot ring out as Sousa hits the core of the gamma cannon. She doesn't realize that she and Frost are in the cannon's line of fire. She doesn't hear the explosion that shatters all the windows and caves in the ceiling. All she sees are Whitney Frost's eyes, and all she feels is absolute, mindless terror.


	11. Chapter 11

The first thing that comes into focus for Dottie is the beige carpet. She curls her fingers around the carpet fibers, mesmerized by the texture. Her ears are ringing and her head feels like it's splitting apart. She sits up slowly. _Where_ …?

She's at the end of a long hallway lined with doors, the walls painted a cheerful yellow, the air slightly stale, faint classical music playing in the background. It could be any hotel in any city, but Dottie is certain she has never seen this place before. She rises to her feet, not quite trusting her senses. She touches her face and the back of her head. Her hair is matted with blood. Then she runs her hands along her stomach, tracing the stitches. Miraculously, they haven't given way, though the shirt she borrowed from Peggy is beyond ruined.

It comes back to Dottie in a flash—the other spy, dead in her cell; Peggy, pale as a sheet and leaning against the wall for support; Frost with her seemingly casual grip on Sousa's arm—and then she had reached for Dottie, her hands impossibly strong around her neck, and…

Dottie nearly throws up on the spot. She forces herself to breathe. Underneath the classical music, she can hear a man talking loudly behind one of the closed doors. She can't make out what he's saying, yet there is something familiar about his voice. The hairs prickle on the back of her neck. For a split second, the hallway shimmers and the walls and the ceiling ooze and loosen their shape before snapping back into place. Something is wrong, very wrong, and it is tugging at her; an insistent, relentless pull.

Every instinct screams _move_ , and so she half limps, half runs down the hall and doesn't stop until she rounds the corner. When she looks back, there is a man standing in the hallway in the exact spot where she had been moments before, his back turned to her. Gray suit, average build. But leather gloves, in this heat…

The man slowly turns his head to the left and then to the right. Dottie can't make out much of his face from this angle, hidden under the brim of his hat. But she doesn't really care about his identity once he pulls a gun out of his jacket and puts on the silencer with practiced swiftness, because then she knows for sure where she is. Or, more importantly, _when_.

She watches from around the corner as the man walks a few feet further down the hall, pauses in front of the door, and knocks. The door opens a few moments later and Dottie hears the muffled shot. When he emerges from the room and starts walking in the other direction, she zeros in immediately on the file in his hand. She doesn't know what it is, but she knows she wants it.

But she's injured and unarmed, and that won't do. So once the man goes around the corner, she dashes over to the room he just vacated and opens the door. Jack Thompson is bleeding out on the floor, on the edge of unconsciousness. The point of no return. Dottie knows what that looks like very well. She carefully steps over the pool of blood and removes the gun from his holster. He won't need it where he's going.

 _I'm not afraid of you_ , she remembered him saying as he removed her handcuffs, but she had sensed his fear and uncertainty the moment he stepped into the interrogation room and she felt nothing but contempt. He was weak. And weak men always thought if they lied to themselves enough, it could make them strong.

There's no time left to waste on Jack Thompson, however. She uses the corner of Peggy's shirt to wipe the doorknob clean of any fingerprints, closes the door, and takes the stairs up to the roof to observe her quarry. She spots him in no time, a gray hat bobbing down the street and heading away from the scene with practiced casualness, the file still in his hand. Taking it to the Council, she imagines, to the men in expensive suits behind hidden doors who thought they pulled the strings on the puppet, until a pretty blond monster showed them what true power looked like.

A disturbing thought suddenly occurs to her: _where is Whitney Frost?_ Dottie fleetingly recalls the flash of light from the gamma cannon and the tremendous explosion. And if that explosion had landed her here in the past, shouldn't it have done the same to Frost as well? Once again, she feels that same pull, more urgent this time, and something terrifying clicks into place. She stops and looks down at her hands and then touches her face, searching for a small black seam.

She finds it behind her right ear. Whitney Frost is calling her, one monster to another.

Now Dottie actually retches, even though her stomach is nearly empty. _We both know there are currencies stronger than money_ , she had told Peggy once, partly in jest. Fear was the currency she had been talking about—the fear that makes people stupid and forces them into making false choices. She feels it now, the adrenalin coursing through her veins, telling her to _run_ , except you cannot run from something inside of you.

No, there is still the task at hand. Dottie takes the fire escape down from the roof and heads down the alley, figuring she can take a shortcut and ambush her target. He's undoubtedly a professional, but he's never come up against her. She presses herself up against the wall, gun raised, and waits for him to pass.

He doesn't appear. She slowly eases around the corner and is taken by surprise when he grabs her arm and jerks her forward. She stumbles but regains her balance and swings her arm around, aiming for his face. She misses, though he drops the file as he dodges and sweeps her legs out from under her.

Dottie goes down hard. She hears the familiar click of the gun, the cold steel pressed up against her forehead, and she slowly looks up at her opponent. She doesn't recognize his face, but she knows that triumphant smile. Her heart races and suddenly everything around her starts _melting_ again, the trees and the buildings and the ground all bending and twisting, and it's happening to her opponent too, the smile replaced by a look of terror.

There is a thin black line of zero matter forming next to the man, hovering just a couple feet to his left. She lashes out, knocking the gun from his hand and shoving him into the rift.

The world abruptly rights itself and the rift disappears, along with her opponent. Dottie slumps on the ground, panting heavily. She reaches behind her ear and touches the seam again. It's bigger now, and she draws her hand back as though she's been burned. A wave of revulsion sweeps through her. This _thing_ is inside of her, same as Whitney Frost. She feels the pull again, even stronger now, and Dottie closes her eyes for a moment. The time for running is over.

She picks the file off the ground and glances briefly at it. _M. Carter_ , it says on the tab. "My goodness, Peggy," she murmurs, but she will have to deal with it later. Whitney Frost is waiting for her.

Dottie lets herself be pulled along down the street, but she already knows where to go. She retraces her steps to the mental hospital and up to the room on the third floor. Strange to think that just two days ago, Dottie had walked down this same hallway. The Whitney Frost she had encountered then had seemed frail and fragile and unaware of her surroundings, but the monster was still there, hidden just under the surface and endlessly hungry. Peggy and Sousa had thought they could contain her; thought it some sort of mercy to leave her alive. But Dottie has known all along that the only way to destroy a monster is to cut off the head.

Dottie enters the cell. Frost is sitting there, back to the door, gazing out the window. "Ah, Miss Underwood," she says, "I knew you would come. You feel it too, don't you?" She stands and turns around, and Dottie has to force herself to not take a step back. Frost's face and arms are laced with streaks of zero matter, traces of it oozing down her dress and onto the floor.

Frost walks towards her, but as she does the room wavers around them. She stops, reaching out to touch the wall as it shifts under her hand. "How fascinating, the different ways zero matter utilizes human bodies as vessels," she murmurs. "I knew it was theoretically possible, and yet I doubted. Do you understand what this means?"

Unconsciously, Dottie touches the space behind her ear. She says nothing.

"Zero matter allows me to manipulate the space around me. But you, Miss Underwood, you are manipulating time itself. No need for any machines or equipment. What a gift you have been given!" Frost steps closer until she stands in front of Dottie. Her blue eyes are full of hunger. "Come with me, and we can help each other. One woman to another," she says softly. Zero matter is seeping out of Frost and running along the floor towards Dottie, and yet she doesn't even seem to notice.

Her talk of sisterhood is a lie; Frost will use her and discard her the first chance she gets. Dottie would do the same. Last year, when she had faced Frost alone for the first time, Dottie had attempted to play that card too, knowing that was her only way out of there alive. But this is a different game now. "I'm listening," she says after a pause. There is one way that Frost might prove useful.

Frost must sense her hesitation. "You still believe Peggy Carter will help you," she says, drawing back slightly. "You're a bigger fool than I thought, then."

"Nobody can help me." Dottie's always known that. In her world, there are only enemies and potential enemies. And while Dottie finds her a highly entertaining rival, Peggy falls into the former category. But it's clear who the bigger threat is in the scheme of things.

Frost laughs. "Ah, well. God helps those who help themselves, yes?"

"You can control the zero matter inside you." The room hasn't stopped shifting around them, and it makes her feel a little sick.

"It took some experimentation, but yes," Frost says. "I was frightened in the beginning when I heard the voice speaking to me, but I listened and it told me what I had to do. You hear it too, don't you?"

Dottie nods. It isn't a voice, exactly, but she understands the meaning. This is the tug she felt before; the thing that drew her back to Whitney Frost. And she knows what it is telling her now as she reaches out to touch the other woman's face.

When her fingers brush Frost's cheek, both of them are suddenly knocked backward. Frost hisses in pain and fury as she hits the ground. The rift is opening up between them, a pool of darkness hovering in the middle of the room.

Dottie watches Frost's eyes widen. "It's so beautiful," she breathes as she stands up and walks toward it, hand outstretched. The zero matter is leaching out of her faster now, and Frost herself seems to be disintegrating the closer she gets to the rift, her fingers dissolving into nothing. But her expression is ecstatic as she moans, "Oh, I've waited so long!"

Dottie edges backwards as the other woman takes another step forward. All at once, Frost's entire body loses its shape and collapses into the rift, and then the rift itself abruptly disappears and the room shifts back its usual form.

No trace of Whitney Frost remains. That was, she thinks, the thing that had shaken her the most about Frost's power—the total erasure of existence. Frost left behind no bodies in her wake; nothing to return to dust. Erasure is her fate now as well.

Dottie doesn't have to touch the seam behind her ear to know that it's grown larger. But she felt the pulse of energy sweep through her as the rift closed, something huge and alien and powerful beyond her comprehension, and she isn't afraid anymore, even though part of her knows she should be. She's alive, and she's always been good at adapting. The only alternative to survival is death, after all.

And Dottie will survive. She picks the file off the floor, stands up, and starts walking.


End file.
